Making the News: Modernity and the Mass Press in Nineteenth-Century France

by Dean de la Motte, Jeannene M. Przyblyski

Overview

Much recent writing on print culture has focused on the social and political implications of the transition from "elite" to "mass" culture in the 1800s. The essays in this volume add significantly to our understanding of the role of the nineteenth-century French press in producing the commodities, consumers, and ideological frameworks that are the hallmarks of this shift. The book also offers an opportunity for useful comparisons with recent scholarship on the rise on the popular press in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany.

The essays address a wide range of topics, from the emergence of commercial daily newspapers during the July Monarchy to the photographic representation of women in the Paris Commune. Together they demonstrate that the French mass press was far more heterogeneous than previously supposed, tapping into an expanding readership composed of a variety of publics—from affluent bourgeois to disaffected workers to disenfranchised women. It was also relentlessly innovative, using caricature, argot, advertisements, and other attention-grabbing techniques that blurred the lines separating art, politics, and the news.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558491779
Publisher:	University of Massachusetts Press
Publication date:	04/06/1999
Series:	Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	396
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	1660L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dean de la Motte is assistant professor of French at Guilford College. Jeannene M. Przyblyski is an independent scholar who lives in San Francisco.

What People are Saying About This

Elinor Accampo

The issues raised in this book about mass culture, consumerism, and the canonical avant-garde are on the cutting edge of interdisciplinary scholarship. Its contribution is far broader than French cultural studies because of the various issues it raises about hegemony and resistance with regard to class and gender.

Editorial Reviews

"The issues raised in this book about mass culture, consumerism, and the canonical avant-garde are on the cutting edge of interdisciplinary scholarship. Its contribution is far broader than French cultural studies because of the various issues it raises about hegemony and resistance with regard to class and gender."—Elinor Accampo, University of Southern California

From the Publisher

An interdisciplinary endeavor, this volume comprises 13 contributions from historians, art historians, and scholars of French language and literature. The collection is intended not as a history of the press in 19th-century France, but rather as a point of departure for new consideration of the central role of the press in the construction of modern culture. Arrangement is in sections on the press and the politics of knowledge, readers and consumers, and gender issues. No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)

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